16 August 2008

Li-Young Lee

It turns out, what keeps you aliveas a child at mid-centuryfollowing your parents from burningvillage to cities on fire to a country at warwith itself and anyonewho looks like you,

what allows you to pass through smoke,through armed mobs singing the merits of a new regime, tooth for a &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp tooth,liberation by purification, and globaldissemination of the love of jealous gods,coup d'etat, coup de grace, and the cooing of mothersand doves and screaming menand children caught in the pyre's updraft,

what keeps you safe even among your own,the numb, the haunted, the maimed, the barely alive,

tricks you learned to become invisible,escapes you perfected, playing dead, playingstupid, playing blind, deaf, weak, strong,playing girl, playing boy, playing native, foreign,in love, out of love, playing crazy, sane, holy, debauched,

playing scared, playing brave, happy, sad, asleep, awake,playing interested, playing bored, playing broken,playing "Fine, I'm just fine," it turns out,

now that you're olderat the beginning of a new century,what kept you aliveall those years keeps you from living.